Karnataka   

Defeat BJP, Congress urges voters

CHICKBALLAPUR: The public meeting of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) at Doddaballapur in Bangalore Rural district on Monday where R.V. Deshpande took over as the new KPCC president and D.K. Shivakumar as the working president, virtually turned into an election rally with all senior Congress leaders appealing to voters to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the ensuing byelections to the Legislative Assembly from eight constituencies.

All the speakers at the rally, including the AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka and Union Minister, Prithviraj Chavan, who inaugurated the convention, criticised the BJP government in the State for “encouraging defection” of MLAs from the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) by using “money power” and called upon the voters to teach the BJP a suitable lesson.

Mr. Deshpande said if the Congress could win all the eight seats in the byelections, it would result in the fall of the B.S. Yeddyurappa government. The Congress workers would forget their differences and function under “collective leadership” to bring the party back to power in the State, he said. Stating that the BJP government was a curse to the State, Mr. Deshpande said the BJP was implementing its hidden agenda through its frontal organisations such as the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Sri Rama Sena. The minority communities in the State were living under fear as the State government itself was using the police to attack churches and Christian prayer halls.

“The image of Karnataka has taken a beating even at the international level,” he said. The people were already disillusioned with the BJP government as it had failed to provide Rs. 1,000 monthly stipend to unemployed youth and supply rice at Rs. 2 a kg as promised in its manifesto. Besides, large-scale corruption had taken place in the recent transfer of officials, he said.

Mr. Shivakumar said the BJP government had become the Government of a “particular community.” The Congress decided to hold the convention at Doddaballapur as the constituency was going to polls shortly. “We will ensure that J. Narasimha Swamy who was elected on the Congress ticket from Doddaballapur and later resigned his Assembly membership to join the BJP is defeated in the byelections,” he said.

Former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, an aspirant for the KPCC president post, and his supporters were conspicuous by their absence.

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